Esca

About Esca

Created by James Beard award-winning chef Dave Pasternack, Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich in 2000, ESCA is revered for its less-is-more approach to cooking. Its elegant simplicity. In his 3-star New York Times canonization of ESCA as the ultimate Italian seafood destination, Frank Bruni coined Dave “an honest-to-God fisherman, in love with the ocean, and ESCA is his ongoing ode to it.

Dave's distinctive crudo dishes are emblematic of ESCA's menu. The freshest, most pristine fish is carefully chosen, expertly sliced, and dressed with one of at least a dozen different extra virgin olive oils from all over the Italian peninsula and sprinkled with any one of ten different sea salts, depending on the flavor of each specific piscatorial divinity. One bite of tilefish with Sardinian oil, for example, will transport you both to the sea in the Gulf of Mexico and the land in Olbia. The varied Italian wine list, composed with value in mind, pairs brilliantly with both the esoteric and the sublimely intuitive.